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● 11.24.22

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● Links 24/11/2022: OBS Studio 29.0 Beta

Posted in News Roundup at 3:03 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNU/Linux

Server

=> ↺ Feedback: environments, old BBSes, Honda’s 2022 bug

• It’s really a nasty situation if you think about it. There is a ridiculous amount of state out there, and nobody really knows what all of it is. We try to fool ourselves with these namespace hacks on Linux that some people call “containers”, but they aren’t the full story and probably never will be.

Audiocasts/Shows

=> ↺ ROCKPro64 Single Board Computer – Invidious

• In this video I show off my RockPro64 Single Board Computer and explain why I think its a good SBC option lieu of raspberry pi’s being expensive due to resellers.

Graphics Stack

=> ↺ NVIDIA driver 515.86.01 fixes Spider-Man Remastered, plus black screen issues on RTX 30

• NVIDIA has released a fresh update to their stable driver series for Linux with 515.86.01 with some fixes.

Applications

=> ↺ OBS Studio 29.0 Beta 1 adds AV1 Encode for AMD / Intel

• OBS Studio 29.0 Beta 1 is now available, as another big update to the video recording and livestreaming app.

Instructionals/Technical

=> ↺ How to Install Wireshark on Fedora 37/36/35

• Wireshark is a powerful and popular network communication tool that allows viewing individual recorded data packets or sorting them according to specific content. This networking software lets you see what’s going on on your computer and helps easily take apart any encrypted messages being sent around it through analysis of their contents. Examples include troubleshooting networks with performance issues and cybersecurity tracing connecting, viewing contents of suspect network transactions, and identifying bursts of network traffic for further analysis.

• The following tutorial will teach you how to install WireShark on Fedora 37/36/35 Linux using the command line terminal and how to configure and launch the application so you can begin monitoring your system.

=> ↺ How to install nmon to monitor Linux

• . In this post, you will learn how to install nmon on Linux. With this tool, you will be able to monitor a Linux system quickly.

• nmon is short for Nigel’s performance Monitor for Linux on POWER, x86, x86_64, Mainframe & now ARM (Raspberry Pi)

• Thanks to nmon, You can display the CPU, memory, network, disks (mini graphs or numbers), file systems, NFS, top processes, resources (Linux version & processors) and on Power micro-partition information.

• Another important feature of nmon is that you can save the generated information for later analysis. In this way, you will have an extra help to determine better solutions to problems originating from the server.

• Easy to use, open source and powerful are some to describe nmon.

=> ↺ How to Install Nginx Mainline on Ubuntu 22.10/22.04/20.04

• For Ubuntu users, the default repository for Nginx might not install the latest version. However, for most users, this is satisfactory. Meanwhile, many users who seek performance and to keep up with the latest security, bug, and performance would look at installing the Nginx mainline.

=> ↺ Using the File Tagging Feature in KDE’s Dolphin File Manager

• Dolphin is the default file manager of the KDE Plasma Desktop Environment. It is considered as one of the most comprehensive and feature-rich file managers available for Linux distributions.

• Yes. It has tons of features and you may not be aware of all of them. One such feature is file tagging.

• File tagging is a way of organizing files or folder by applying tags to them. This tag can then be used to search for data, and sort the files accordingly. With this feature, you can tag files into categories irrespective of their location. This gives you a new way to organize your files.

• While there are dedicated tools like Tagspaces for this purpose, this feature comes baked into KDE’s Dolphin file manager.

• In this tutorial, I’ll show you how to use the file tagging feature in Dolphin.

=> ↺ How to Install FFmpeg on Fedora 37/36/35

• Anyone who has worked with audio or video knows that file format compatibility can be a significant headache. FFmpeg is a powerful tool that can help to solve this problem by decoding, encoding, and transcoding multimedia files. In addition to supporting a wide range of file formats, FFmpeg also supports several different codecs making it an ideal tool for transcoding files between multiple formats or encoding files for use with specific devices or platforms. With FFmpeg, you can easily convert your files into the format you need without worrying about compatibility issues.

• The following tutorial will teach you how to install FFmpeg on Fedora 37/36/35 Linux using the command line terminal with the default Fedora repository. Given Fedora is a six monthly release and focuses on pushing the latest packages as best as possible, you should ideally need to install any third-party repository or manually the framework. Lastly, the tutorial will run through some common FFmpeg command examples.

Games

=> ↺ Rogue Legacy 2 has a Native Linux port available now, more stable on Steam Deck

• As promised recently, Rogue Legacy 2 from Cellar Door Games now has a Native Linux version available to give you the best experience possible on Steam Deck and Linux desktop.

=> ↺ Get a free copy of Narita Boy during the GOG Black Friday sale

• GOG are giving away another free game. This time it’s Narita Boy during the GOG Black Friday sale that’s live now.

=> ↺ Sid Meier’s Civilization VI gets a ‘Leader Pass’, breaks it on Linux and macOS

• Firaxis Games recently launched their new Leader Pass for Sid Meier’s Civilization VI, and it seems they broke it on both macOS and Linux.

=> ↺ JSAUX M.2 SSD Steam Deck Docking Station gets a sale, adding a 65W charger too

• JSAUX have announced that their excellent M.2 Docking Station for Steam Deck that allows you to add in an SSD, is about to go on sale and they’re now bundling a charger. Mentioned in a blog post, they’re doing a nice discount between November 24th – November 28th.

=> ↺ Valve puts up Proton Next (7.0-5) to provide easier testing of future upgrades

• Proton Next has been announced by Valve developer Pierre-Loup Griffais on Twitter, as an easier way to check out and test the upcoming stable releases of new Proton versions for Linux desktop and Steam Deck.

Distributions and Operating Systems

Devices/Embedded

=> ↺ Ryzen Embedded 3000 based PC equipped with up to 6x LAN ports

• SolidRun recently unveiled an industrial-grade PC built around the AMD Ryzen Embedded V3000 processor. The Bedrock PC comes with up to 4x 2.5GbE LAN ports, 2x 10GbE LAN ports, 3x M.2 2280 sockets and optional wireless connectivity.

Free, Libre, and Open Source Software

Programming/Development

=> ↺ Cut for time

• Gaining back some build performance: a hot build of my website, in development, takes 5 seconds on a pretty good machine. I’d like to try some sort of “micro-service architecture” but it’s just a bunch of binaries doing IPC between each other. Each target is built and linked independently, everyone’s happy. I’m curious to see how that would perform!

=> ↺ The carcinization of Go programs

• Sometimes you just need to embed this one library written in another language into your program. This is a common thread amongst programmers time immemorial. This has always been a process fraught with peril, fear, torment, and lemon-scented moist towelettes for some reason.

• Normally if you want to call a Rust function from Go, you have to go through some middleman like cgo. This works and is somewhat elegant for how utterly terrible a hack cgo is.

=> ↺ Power Analysis for a DV Test – Frequentist and Bayesian Estimation in R – [R]eliability

• When testing is costly or resource intensive, it’s not uncommon for management to ask an engineer “what are the chances that we pass?”. The answer will depend on the team’s collection of domain knowledge around the product and requirement but also in how the question is interpreted. It will also be sensitive to sample size considerations. In this post, I will show how to conduct an analysis to inform the response from both a Frequentist and Bayesian perspective. Simulation will be used whenever possible to avoid the need for external references and the predictions will be used to inform a recommendation of sample size.

=> ↺ Asia Against Dollar: Forecasting with Modeltime

• While the US midterm election escalated, the dollar’s performance weakened; especially this situation happened against the Asian currencies. South Korean won(KRW) is the best performer among them. The Chinese yuan(CNY) was behind its counterparts because of their aggressive public health measures related to the zero-COVID protocol.

• Let’s add the Japanese yen(JPY) and Malaysian ringgit(MYR) to the above currencies and analyze them via the timetk package. First, we will compare the mentioned Asian FX rates between 2018-2022 years with line charts.

=> ↺ Using functional analysis to model air pollution data in R | Nicola Rennie

• Let’s say you need to understand how your data changes within a day, and between different days. For example, if you have hourly pollution data that follows a regular pattern throughout a day, but follows different patterns on a Wednesday and Saturday. Functional analysis is one approach of doing just that. During my PhD, I developed methods based on functional analysis to identify outlier demand in booking patterns for trains in railway networks. To demonstrate that those statistical methods are also applicable in other areas, I started to analyse air pollution data across the United Kingdom. This blog post will discuss the idea of using functional analysis to model air pollution data with the aim of identifying abnormal pollution days.

Rust

=> ↺ Async fn in trait, for real this time

=> ↺ Async fn in trait… not

• I was planning on showing the in-progress async_fn_in_trait feature in the context of my website, but it turns out, I can’t!

Leftovers

=> ↺ Books You Should Read: Why Buildings Fall Down

• People with long commutes usually come up with tricks to stay focused and alert and avoid the dangerous tendency to zone out during the drive. One trick I used to use was keeping mental track of the various construction projects I’d pass by on my way to work, noticing which piers on a new highway overpass were nearing completion, or watching steelworkers put together the complex rebar endoskeletons of a new stretch of roadway.

=> ↺ Getting Adopted Didn’t Save Me

• When I was adopted out of foster care at age 6, everyone in my new family was sweet to me. At first, it seemed like there was a lot of love. In addition to my two adoptive parents, I had six new siblings. Nobody made me feel like I was different.

=> ↺ Turkey Day Sonnet 2022

=> ↺ The Malaise, Mess, and Art of Black Millennial Womanhood

• Across genres and mediums, an alternative vision of Black millennial womanhood is emerging. Works like Issa Rae’s television show Insecure and Raven Leilani’s novel Luster revel in depression and precarity—making the young, professional Black woman’s life tragicomic. These works reject the demand for Black resiliency and present an antidote to the strong Black woman: the messy Black girl.

=> ↺ Brittney Griner’s Jail Conditions Speak to the Urgency of Bringing Her Home

• Just as in late February, when she seemed to disappear off the map following a Moscow airport arrest for possession of a vape cartridge, we don’t know exactly where Brittney Griner is, only that she isn’t home. As she begins a shocking—even by Russian standards—nine-year prison sentence, her state of health and whereabouts are a mystery. We do know that she is at the IK-2 penal colony in Mordovia, but that’s not particularly helpful given that Mordovia is known as Russia’s “land of prisons.” In the snowy, swampy area about 250 miles southeast of Moscow, there are roughly two dozen massive jails. Her “penal colony” could be any one of these.

=> ↺ Supreme Court Denies Trump’s Request to Keep Taxes From Congress

=> ↺ 2022 – a year in review – Terence Eden’s Blog

• I was due to be in SF today. But Alan the Hyperprat cancelled the conference at the last minute – leaving me a couple of hundred quid out of pocket, and disappointing all the friends I’d arranged to see. Truly it is the worst thing that he has ever done to anyone ever. Anyway, follow me on Mastodon

• The last year has been reasonable. Obviously COVID is still casting a long shadow. Gigs are still being cancelled, and some friends are still cautious about meeting up. But we’ve been able to go to a few concerts and plays. The Elizabeth Line opening up has been transformational. A 15 minute ride to work! 25 minutes from Central London! Brilliant!

=> ↺ Artistic Prototypes

• I love to work this way on many of my side projects. The process of creating multiple, alternative variations — drawings, design mocks, working code in PRs, etc. — along the path to an intended single solution refines ideas through the contrast of alternative variations.

• For example, I have a current side project where I’ve now built one particular view in many different ways. I have PRs for a lit-html implementation, a web components implementation, a plain HTML implementation, a React implementation, and a Preact implementation. None of these PRs are production ready and each implement a design that is subtly different visually or functionally to accomplish the same goal with the strengths of each technology. Each PR has enough fidelity to provide me contrast and a sense of taste for which solution is best. They are prototype variations of an idea, and through this production of contrasting “copies” a suitable solution becomes visible — sometimes as a refinement of an existing prototype, sometimes through the mixing of different ideas across prototypes.

=> ↺ A Suit or a Suitcase

• You ask what I’ll miss about this life. Everything but cruelty, I think.

Education

=> ↺ Opinion | Mike Pompeo Just Proved He Is the Stupidest Person in the World

• Trump’s Secretary of State Mike Pompeo just proved that he is the stupidest person in the world. He said in an interview that Randi Weingarten, President of the American Federation of Teachers, is “the most dangerous person in the world.”

Hardware

=> ↺ How To Build Your Own Analog Phone Network

• Analog phones may be nearly obsolete today, but having served humanity for well over a century they’re quite likely to pop up in drawers or attics now and then. If you’ve got a few of them lying around and you think it’d be cool to hook them up and make your own local telephone system, check out [Gadget Reboot]’s latest work. His video series shows all the steps towards making a fully-functional wired phone system.

=> ↺ Sick Beats: Using Music And Smartphone To Attack A Biosafety Room

• Imagine a movie featuring a scene set in a top-secret bioweapons research lab. The villain, clad in a bunny suit, strides into the inner sanctum of the facility — one of the biosafety rooms where only the most infectious and deadliest microorganisms are handled. Tension mounts as he pulls out his phone; surely he’ll use it to affect some dramatic hack, or perhaps set off an explosive device. Instead, he calls up his playlist and… plays a song? What kind of villain is this?

=> ↺ Trackball Split Keyboard Will Roll Into Your Heart

• One of the nicest problems to have with a split keyboard, even a monoblock split, is deciding what to put in the middle. Most people go for either the mouse, or else their beverage of choice. Some might sub in a bowl of snacks later on in the day. Personally, we most often use the space for holding notes.

=> ↺ iTWire – Bifurcation of chip industry will hit China harder: S&P claim

• A bifurcation of the global semiconductor industry will be expensive and risky, and pose threats to quality and reliability as well, the rating agency S&P Global Ratings says in a research note issued earlier this month, adding that China and other Asia-Pacific producers are likely to suffer more.

• The agency issued its note in the wake of the imposition of new restrictions by the US on chip exports to China on 7 October.

• S&P pointed out that if global semiconductor support chains became less integrated, manufacturers in China, the US and Europe would be forced to construct new and overlapping foundries costing more than US$10 billion (A$14.8 billion) apiece.

• The risk factor arose because bifurcation would lead to disruption of supply chains for both chip makers and consumers, resulting in battles for control of upstream materials.

=> ↺ Innodisk EXMU-X261FPGA Machine Vision Platform is based on AMD Xilinx Kria K26 SoM

• Innodisk, better known for its embedded storage and memory chips, had announced its intention to turn to the AI market earlier and started with the launch of USB camera modules last month, but the company has gone a step (or two, or three) further with the introduction of the EXMU-X261 FPGA machine vision platform.

• The EXMU-X261 is powered by an AMD Xilink Kria K26 system-on-module and features HDMI 1.4 video output, Gigabit Ethernet, four USB 3.1 Gen 1 ports for the cameras and other peripherals, as well as two M.2 sockets and a terminal block for expansion.

=> ↺ Termi2 Is Siri Like It’s 1976

• What are your plans for the long weekend? If you don’t have time or don’t want to dive into a new project, why not dust off something left unfinished, or do as Hackaday alum [Cameron Coward] did recently and upgrade an old project with a new brain.

=> ↺ Tidy POV Display Using The ESP32

• Chinese Youtuber [corebb] presents the second version of his POV display. The earlier version used 5050-sized SMT addressable LEDs, which didn’t give great resolution, so he rev’d the design to use a much higher number (160 to be exact) of APA102 LEDs. These are 2mm on the side, making them a little more difficult to handle, so after some initial solder paste wobbles, he decided to use a contract assembly house to do the tricky bit for him. This failed as they didn’t ‘understand’ the part and placed them the wrong way around! Not to be deterred, he had another go with a modified solder stencil, and eventually got the full strip to light up correctly.

=> ↺ Hardware Store Chemicals Transform Sheets Into Waterproof Tarps

• For hackers in the Northern Hemisphere, the seasons of wet and cold are upon us. Staying dry is every bit as important as staying warm, so what better than a hack or two to keep us warm and dry! All you’ll need is a bed sheet, some rope, and a run to the local hardware store, and a bit of knowledge. [NightHawkInLight] has us covered with the excellent video “Recycled Bedsheets Make The Best Waterproof Tarps” as seen below the break.

Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

=> ↺ Fenceline Community Groups in Louisiana’s Cancer Alley Celebrate Mounting Victories

• “We decided to fight in courts instead of on the streets,” Sharon Lavigne, founder of RISE St. James, explained to me on a call, describing her faith-based community organization’s latest legal victory. The decisive free speech win follows other recent notable milestones for environmental justice advocates in the petrochemical and refinery-lined river parishes between Baton Rouge and New Orleans — an area known as “Cancer Alley,” where Lavigne lives.

• On November 17, a week before Thanksgiving, Tulane Law’s First Amendment Clinic, announced a favorable settlement on behalf of RISE. St. James after a two-year legal battle against the St. James Parish town of Gramercy and its mayor, Steve Nosacka, an outspoken supporter of the oil and gas industry.

=> ↺ “Died Suddenly”: Resurrecting the old antivax lie of depopulation

• I realize that I sometimes repeat this to the point of annoyance, but it really does need to be repeated over and over: In the age of the pandemic, everything old is new again with respect to antivaccine disinformation. The most recent example is the claims that, thanks to COVID-19 vaccines, huge numbers of people have “died suddenly,” because the vaccines are designed to result in “depopulation” (which the “global elites” apparently want for reasons that are never made coherent). This particular conspiracy theory that’s trending now about COVID-19 vaccines is an echo—hell, a rehash—of old antivax conspiracy theories. The problem is that most people, who hadn’t been paying attention in years past, don’t realize this. Coming out next month is a book pushing a similar conspiracy theory, “Cause Unknown”: The Epidemic of Sudden Deaths in 2021 & 2022. It’s written by Ed Dowd, described as a “former Wall Street analyst and BlackRock portfolio manager”—because that’s who should be doing amateur epidemiology, right?—who:

=> ↺ Thousands of Health Care Workers Face Job Loss as COVID Funding Dwindles

=> ↺ How We Beat an Anti-Abortion Amendment in Deep-Red Kentucky

• On Election Day, Kentucky voters defeated an anti-abortion constitutional amendment in a state that’s been represented by two Republican senators for the past 25 years and has voted for Republicans in nine of the last 11 presidential elections. How did voters defy conventional wisdom and defend abortion rights? The key was organizing, through which volunteers connected deeply, authentically, and vulnerably with voters about abortion—an issue that Democrats have avoided talking about for years, while the Christian right has been using it effectively as a base-building flash point.

Proprietary

=> ↺ European Parliament website affected by [DDoS] attack

• European Parliament spokesman Jaume Duch said the website “is currently impacted from outside due to high levels of external network traffic.” He added that “this traffic is related to a DDOS attack (Distributed Denial of Service) event.”

• Technical teams are working to resolve the issue as quickly as possible.

=> ↺ Ransomware incidents now make up majority of British government’s crisis management ‘Cobra’ meetings

• Ransomware incidents in the United Kingdom are now so impactful that the majority of the British government’s recent “Cobra” crisis management meetings have been convened in response to them rather than other emergencies.

=> ↺ Threats to the Homeland

• Today – we’ll also have the opportunity to discuss the significant threat that cyber-attacks pose to our national and economic security.

• [...]

• Cyberattacks are another significant issue facing every sector of our country. They are a force multiplier for our adversaries, who understand our economic and security dependence on technology. Compounding that problem is the inherent difficulty of attributing cyberattacks to specific nation-states or criminal groups.

=> ↺ The DOJ Has Opened an Investigation Into RealPage

• The Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division has opened an investigation into whether rent-setting software made by a Texas-based real estate tech company is facilitating collusion among landlords, according to a source with knowledge of the matter.

• The inquiry is being launched as questions have arisen about a 2017 merger between RealPage and its largest pricing competitor. The source told ProPublica some DOJ staff raised concerns about the merger but were overridden by political appointees of former President Donald Trump.

Security

=> ↺ Sec firm MDSec slams Proofpoint for post on pen-testing framework

• European security firm MDSec has taken exception to the release of a blog post by another security outfit, Proofpoint, about its penetration testing framework Nighthawk, accusing the latter of making “unsubstantiated and speculative projections” about the framework.

• Nighthawk is an advanced C2 framework similar to Cobalt Strike and Brute Ratel; it can be used by both black hats and red teams and is commercially licensed.

• Proofpoint’s post said it had identified initial delivery of Nighthawk in September and then investigated the potential of the framework. It pointed out that it did not take very long for such tools to spread to the black hat community after they were released, writing:

• “Between 2019 and 2020, Proofpoint observed a 161% increase in threat actor use of Cobalt Strike. This increase was quickly followed by the adoption of Sliver – an open-source, cross-platform adversary simulation and red team platform.

• [...]

• MDSec was obviously annoyed that Proofpoint had published its post without first speaking to MDSec.

=> ↺ Australian cops ‘using psyops’ in fight against Medibank attackers

• Australian law enforcement agencies appear to have resorted to psyops in a bid to send a message to network attackers that Australia is not the best place to do business.

• A message on a Russian language forum — written in surprisingly good English — called the attack on medical insurer Medibank Group unprofessional and speculated that it might kill off the Australian market for ransomware-as-a-service.

• The attackers were castigated for not encrypting the data they gained access to before exfiltrating the same and also criticised for not obtaining persistence within the system attacked.

• [...]

• “Someone has then negotiated to utilise REvil, a group that was ostensibly ‘dismantled’ by the FBI/FSB early this year and done nothing officially since and now REvil’s Happy Blog Tor site has been magically resurrected on a new onion and Medibank’s data posted in chunks, presumably in the hope that Medibank will change its mind.”

=> ↺ 2FA, 3FA, MFA… What does it all mean?

• Simply put, authentication is the act of proving you are who you say you are. To gain access to protected information, systems or locations, the user must prove their identity by providing specific access credentials.

• The system asks: “Who are you? Prove it.” When the user successfully authenticates (and depending on the permissions associated with their account), the system allows them to perform specific actions, access specific information or specific physical locations.

=> ↺ System misconfiguration is the number one vulnerability, at least for Mastodon

• The number one vulnerability is system misconfiguration

• Today I’m going to explain why this is true and how I could have replaced everyone’s profile picture (or any other user’s uploaded content) with a meme at infosec.exchange Mastodon instance.

Privacy/Surveillance

=> ↺ Yet Another Report Suggests Apple’s Well-Hyped New Privacy Standards Are Performative

• For the last few years, Apple has worked overtime trying to market itself as a more privacy-focused company. 40-foot billboards of the iPhone with the slogan “Privacy. That’s iPhone” have been a key part of company marketing. The only problem: researchers keep highlighting how a lot of Apple’s well-hyped privacy changes are performative in nature.

=> ↺ EARN IT Act Will Make The Internet Worse For Everyone By Undermining Privacy And Security

• To save the children, we must destroy everything. That’s the reality of the EARN IT Act. I mean, you can get some sort of sense of what you’re in store for just by reading the actual words behind the extremely labored acronym: Eliminating Abuse and Rampant Neglect of Interactive Technologies Act. Whew. It’s a mouthful. And, given the name, it seems like this would be Congress putting funding towards supporting moderation efforts that target abusive content.

=> ↺ Experts Condemn The UK Online Safety Bill As Harmful To Privacy And Encryption

• In a letter published today, EFF has joined dozens of security researchers and human rights groups to send a clear message to incoming U.K. prime minister Rishi Sunak: the Online Safety Bill must not undermine encryption. As the letter notes, in its current form, the Online Safety Bill “contains clauses that would erode end-to-end encryption in private messaging.” It continues:  

• In the past few years, we’ve seen a number of proposals brought forward by governments that want to scan user-to-user communications for criminal content: the U.S. EARN IT Act, and the EU’s proposal to scan private chats. All of these proposals suffer from the incorrect belief that a backdoor or other workaround to read encrypted messages can be designed for use only in benevolent ways. 

• That isn’t the case, and never will be. Criminals, rogue employees, domestic abusers, and authoritarian governments are just some of the bad actors that will eagerly exploit backdoors like those proposed by the Online Safety Bill. Proposals like this threaten a basic human right: our right to have a private conversation. 

=> ↺ Top Prosecutors in CA, NY and DC Are Speaking Up For End-to-End Encryption

• In the fraught legal landscape following the U.S. Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision, digital privacy around reproductive health has become critical. Several states are already enforcing abortion bans, and the Brennan Center for Justice has noted more than 100 state bills that were introduced in 2022 to further limit abortion access. At the same time, many states, including California and New York, have moved to protect or expand the right to abortion access, including for out-of-state persons. In this month’s elections, voters in California, Michigan, and Vermont enshrined the right to abortion in their state constitutions. 

• In recent months, we’ve been pleased to see statements from attorneys general in New York, California, and Washington D.C., all advising citizens to use end-to-end encrypted services when seeking abortion services. 

• These statements are good advice for consumers. Notably, these statements by elected law enforcement officials, seeking to protect their own constituents’ right to seek appropriate health care, stand in contrast to some federal agencies, including the FBI and the Department of Justice, that have sought to bypass or weaken encrypted services. 

=> ↺ Amazon Alexa is a “colossal failure,” on pace to lose $10 billion this year – Ars Technica

• Amazon is going through the biggest layoffs in the company’s history right now, with a plan to eliminate some 10,000 jobs. One of the areas hit hardest is the Amazon Alexa voice assistant unit, which is apparently falling out of favor at the e-commerce giant. That’s according to a report from Business Insider, which details “the swift downfall of the voice assistant and Amazon’s larger hardware division.”

• Alexa has been around for 10 years and has been a trailblazing voice assistant that was copied quite a bit by Google and Apple. Alexa never managed to create an ongoing revenue stream, though, so Alexa doesn’t really make any money. The Alexa division is part of the “Worldwide Digital” group along with Amazon Prime video, and Business Insider says that division lost $3 billion in just the first quarter of 2022, with “the vast majority” of the losses blamed on Alexa. That is apparently double the losses of any other division, and the report says the hardware team is on pace to lose $10 billion this year. It sounds like Amazon is tired of burning through all that cash.

=> ↺ I Spy… Something Beginning With Con

• Managing the lands stolen for conservation requires controlling the dispossessed, which is one reason why conservation needs intelligence gathering. Although this has received little attention, it’s bound to be an important factor in shaping its agendas.

• Which brings me to a tweet of mine from 24 October, “As Ukraine war is escalated by all sides (NB “all”, rather than “both”), who pays the price and who pockets it?”

Defence/Aggression

=> ↺ ’Terrorist attack’: home of Bondi Beach media identity Jordan Shanks firebombed – Michael West

• The 33-year-old YouTuber says he is being targeted, with a long list of suspects. Callum Foote reports on what appears to be a terrorist attack – a rare act of political violence and, if so, something more likely to happen in St Petersburg than Sydney.

=> ↺ ISIS fighters terrorize Mozambique, threaten gas supply amid Ukraine war

• In northern Mozambique, one of the Islamic State’s newest branches is fueling a brutal insurgency that has raged out of sight in small villages and remote forests since late 2017. Women are kidnapped and kept as sex slaves, boys are forced to become child soldiers, beheadings are weapons of terror. The conflict has claimed about 4,000 lives; nearly 1 million people have fled their homes, separating countless families.

• Victims shared their stories with The Washington Post on the condition that they be identified only by their first names, and, in R.A.’s case, by his initials, because his first name is uncommon. They still live in fear of the militants.

=> ↺ Don’t Act Surprised, We Knew the Right Was Stoking Violence

• No, we just want Walsh and his coterie of right-wing extremists to acknowledge that their cottage industry of hate has helped create a toxic environment, that has radicalized unhinged individuals to use violence against targeted groups.

• You know, stochastic terrorism.

=> ↺ We Need a Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty to Stop Violence Against African Women and Our Continent

• COP27 has just ended and while the agreement to develop a loss and damage fund is a real victory for vulnerable nations already devastated by climate change impacts, UN climate talks once again failed to address the root cause of these impacts: fossil fuel production.

• We, African women on the front line, fear that the expansion of oil, coal, and especially gas will only reproduce historic inequalities, militarism, and war patterns. Presented as essential development tools for the African continent and the world, fossil fuels have demonstrated over more than 50 years of exploitation that they are weapons of mass destruction. Their pursuit systematically follows a violent pattern: appropriation of resource-rich land, exploitation of those resources, and then export of those resources by wealthy countries and corporations, to the detriment of local populations, their livelihoods, their cultures and, of course, their climate. 

=> ↺ Kamala Harris Hits Out at China in Speech on Philippine Coast Guard Ship

• Harris delivered the speech in Palawan, a Philippine island province with a coast on the South China Sea.

=> ↺ French Ambassador: US ‘Rules-Based Order’ Means Western Domination, Violating International Law

• France’s ex US Ambassador Gérard Araud criticized Washington for frequently violating international law and said its so-called “rules-based order” is an unfair “Western order” based on “hegemony.” He condemned the new cold war on China, instead calling for mutual compromises.

=> ↺ Noam Chomsky on Legacy of Radical Historian Staughton Lynd, Who Protested Korea, Vietnam & Iraq Wars

• Noam Chomsky remembers the life and legacy of longtime peace and civil rights activist, lawyer and author Staughton Lynd, who has died at the age of 92. Lynd faced professional blowback after he was a conscientious objector during the Korean War and an outspoken critic of the Vietnam War, and later supported U.S. soldiers who refused to fight in Iraq. We feature an extended interview excerpt from when he appeared on Democracy Now! in 2006 to discuss the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq, his conscientious objector status and the 1993 Ohio prison uprising in Lucasville.

=> ↺ Staughton Lynd’s Radicalism From Below

• When Staughton Lynd, Tom Hayden, and Herbert Aptheker traveled to Hanoi to declare peace with the Vietnamese people in 1965, they stopped off in Paris to meet several North Vietnamese officials. After a long discussion, a small, elderly Vietnamese man pulled Staughton aside and said to him, “Professor Lynd, you need to understand that we are going to win this war whether you help us or not. For every soldier killed by the United States military, two will join the National Liberation Front.” Staughton enjoyed telling this story about someone who had knocked him off his savior’s horse and put him in his place with only two sentences. Staughton would add, recalling the story: “That’s the kind of dialectical thinker I would like to become.”

=> ↺ Ukrainian authorities report shelling of hospital in Zaporizhzhia region — Meduza

• Overnight, Russian forces shelled the maternity ward of a local hospital in Vilniansk, Zaporizhzhia region. According to Zaporizhzhia Governor Oleksandr Starukh, an infant was killed.

=> ↺ Did Orbán vote for the sanctions? According to Fidesz MPs, it’s not that simple

=> ↺ EP resolution declares Russia a terrorist state, Fidesz MEPs in room but didn’t vote

=> ↺ Jonas Jonasson: No creature on earth is as stupid as mankind

=> ↺ European Parliament declares Russia state sponsor of terrorism — Meduza

• On November 23, the European Parliament adopted a resolution recognizing Russia as a state sponsor of terrorism. The resolution was supported by 494 deputies out of 705, and 58 deputies voted against it, according to a press release from the European Parliament.

=> ↺ Opposition politician Ilya Yashin goes on trial in Moscow — Meduza

• Moscow’s Meshchansky District Court is hearing a case against opposition politician Ilya Yashin, who is accused of “knowingly” spreading “false information” because he streamed information about the killing of civilians in Bucha.

=> ↺ Mobilized soldiers from Serpukhov say they were thrown into combat ‘like a piece of meat’ — Meduza

• Mobilized men from the city of Serpukhov, outside of Moscow, recorded a video in which they say they were sent to the front lines near Makiivka, in the Luhansk region, without preparation or the equipment they needed, and that they were shelled by their own side while they retreated.

=> ↺ Massacres, robberies, and no help to authorities A close look at one year of PMC Wagner’s ‘peacekeeping’ in Mali — Meduza

=> ↺ Alleged Virginia Walmart Shooter Who Killed 6 Was Employee of Store

=> ↺ Yet Another Mass Shooting in US as Gunman Kills at Least 6 in Virginia Walmart

• A gunman opened fire inside a Chesapeake, Virginia Walmart late Tuesday, killing at least six people and wounding others in the latest mass shooting in the United States, which has seen more than 600 this year alone.

• Reuters reported that local police “have so far not provided any details about the suspected shooter, but several media outlets have identified him as a manager at the store.” The shooter was found dead at the scene.

=> ↺ Don’t Forget White Rage

• Clearly, the big loser in the 2022 elections was Donald Trump.  A reported 14 candidates that he backed lost including, most notably, Senate candidate Mehmet Oz and gubernatorial candidate Doug Mastriano in Pennsylvania; Kari Lake for Arizona governor; and Kristina Karamo for Michigan secretary of state.

• However, the most revealing episode of the election jamboree was Trump’s rant against Florida’s Gov. Ron DeSantis, dubbing him “Ron DeSanctimonious.” DeSantis’s significant reelection victory only added to fuel to the fire that increasingly defines the growing splits within the Republican Party. Trump’s formal announcement that he plans to run for president 2024 threw down the gauntlet to DeSantis and other Republican hopefuls.

=> ↺ US Arms Dealing Is Out of Control

• Here’s a seldom commented upon reality of this century and this moment: The United States remains the number-one arms-exporting nation on the planet. Between 2017 and 2021, it grabbed 39 percent of the total global weapons market, and there’s nothing new about that. It has, in fact, been the top arms dealer in every year but one for the past three decades. And it’s a remarkably lucrative business, earning American weapons makers tens of billions of dollars annually.

Transparency/Investigative Reporting

=> ↺ Rex Patrick: Government credibility on the line amid Boyle, McBride whistleblower trials – Michael West

• Relentless prosecution of whistleblowers David McBride and Richard Boyle may damage the credibility of Australia’s government on the world stage, writes Rex Patrick. Whistleblower protection laws need urgent reform. “We are committed to ensuring that Australia has effective protections for whistleblowers”, the Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus KC proclaimed at an Australian Public Sector Anti-Corruption Conference in Sydney a week ago. With the skill of a seasoned politician, he did so with a straight face.

• Dreyfus pledged his support for the protections knowing full well that the prosecutions of whistleblowers Richard Boyle and David McBride, by the organisations they blew the whistle on, continue relentlessly.

• Boyle is in the courts facing criminal charges related to his disclosure of Tax Office abuse of garnishee powers. Enduring garnishee notices issued by ATO allow the Tax Commissioner to unilaterally and completely strip the bank accounts of businesses, leaving them unable to pay employee wages, superannuation, nor supplier. It’s a death warrant.

=> ↺ Qatar World Cup crowds show 17,000 fans have disappeared

• In the four matches played so far this tournament the official crowds for all matches were listed to be well above the official capacity for each of the venues.

• Photos taken of grandstands during the middle of matches have also shown thousands of missing fans.

=> ↺ Unauthorized Disclosure: Joshua Frank

Environment

=> ↺ Climate change is making the weather more severe. Why don’t most forecasts mention it?

• That connection between extreme weather and climate change has never been clearer, thanks to an area of science known as extreme-event attribution. It allows scientists to describe exactly how much worse a specific flood, heat wave, hurricane or drought is because of human-caused global warming.

• But that science is largely missing from public weather forecasts that millions of people in the U.S. rely on. As severe weather gets more common, scientists and forecasters are contending with a sneakily difficult question: How do we work together to explain the role of climate change?

=> ↺ Scientists warn of health impacts as Great Lakes plastic pollution grows

• Tens of millions of pounds of tiny pieces of plastic called ‘microplastics’ enter the Great Lakes each year

• Exposure is linked to learning and memory issues in animals; researchers fear similar effects on humans

• Experts say minor policy changes like banning microbeads are inadequate to combat the issue

=> ↺ Filipino Climate Activist Yeb Saño on COP27, Climate Reparations & Philippines’ New President Marcos

• This week U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris visited the Philippines, where she said the U.S. would defend the Philippines “in the face of intimidation and coercion” from China and vowed to expand the U.S. military presence in the country even after former bases leaked toxic waste into the environment. We recently spoke about the environment and more with Filipino activist Yeb Saño at the U.N. climate summit in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt. He was previously the chief climate negotiator for the Philippines and is now executive director of Greenpeace Southeast Asia. Saño describes the “loss and damage” fund negotiated between the Global North and Global South as an “expression of human solidarity.” He also discusses Philippines President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s commitments to climate action, as well as the threats faced by Filipino environmental activists.

=> ↺ In a Historic Move, Frontline Communities Will Be Compensated for Climate Crisis Impacts

• The annual UN climate negotiations concluded on Sunday in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, running predictably into overtime, with a mixed outcome. Delegates celebrated the historic decision to create a mechanism by which developed countries will compensate developing countries for the havoc wreaked upon frontline communities by the climate crisis. Yet a call to phase out fossil fuels did not make it into a final draft. Given that it is the source of the emissions and the climate crisis, many scoffed at the hypocrisy of the results.

=> ↺ Highway 2 (Climate) Hell

=> ↺ Opinion | Environmental Justice Must Be in the Forefront of Any Permitting Reform Efforts by Congress

• In September, I joined with hundreds of people from across the country to stop a ploy initiated by my Senator, Joe Manchin (D-WV), Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) to gut bedrock environmental law in order to allow highly polluting and unnecessary fossil fuel projects to be fast tracked through the permitting process. This unprecedented action would gut the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), the Clean Water Act (CWA) and other social and environmental justice protections. 

Energy

=> ↺ Sam Bankman-Fried deepfake attempts to scam investors impacted by FTX

• A faked video of Sam Bankman-Fried, the former CEO of cryptocurrency exchange FTX, has circulated on Twitter, attempting to scam investors affected by the exchange’s bankruptcy.

• Created using programs to emulate Bankman-Fried’s likeness and voice, the poorly made “deepfake” video attempts to direct users to a malicious site under the promise of a “giveaway” that will “double your cryptocurrency.”

=> ↺ FTX Founder Deepfake Offers Refund to Victims in Verified Twitter Account Scam

• A deepfake of FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried circulated on Twitter on Friday, where the founder of the collapsed cryptocurrency exchange appeared to claim he could make users whole again by doubling their cryptocurrency in a typical giveaway scam. Making matters worse, the account was verified and mimicked SBF’s real account.

=> ↺ ‘Leading the Nation on Climate,’ NY Governor Signs Partial Ban on Crypto Mining

• Environmentalists celebrated after Democratic New York Gov. Kathy Hochul on Tuesday approved a two-year moratorium on permits for fossil fuel plants that power cryptocurrency mining operations which use proof-of-work authentication methods to validate blockchain transactions.

• While the cryptocurrency industry and its allies opposed the measure—the Digital Chamber of Commerce said it was “severely disappointed” with Hochul’s decision to sign the bill into law and set a “dangerous precedent” for energy rules—environmental campaigners heralded it as a model.

=> ↺ Opinion | US NRC Seeks Greatly Reduced Safety Regulations for ‘Advanced’ Nuclear Power Plants

• “Guinea Pig Nation: How the NRC’s new licensing rules could turn communities into test beds for risky, experimental nuclear plants,” is what physicist Dr. Edwin Lyman, Director of Nuclear Power Safety with the Union of Concerned Scientists, titled his presentation last week.

Wildlife/Nature

=> ↺ Let’s Rename the Day After Thanksgiving ‘Extinction Friday’

Finance

=> ↺ ‘Historic Win’: UN Members to Start Talks on ‘Inclusive and Effective’ Global Tax Standards

• Tax justice advocates around the world on Wednesday celebrated the unanimous adoption of a resolution to “begin intergovernmental discussions in New York at United Nations Headquarters on ways to strengthen the inclusiveness and effectiveness of international tax cooperation.”

• “African countries stood together and made historic strides, breaking through the long-standing blockade by the OECD countries.”

=> ↺ Opinion | Inflation Inequality: The Impact of Soaring Prices on the Bottom-Tier Communities of the South

• 2021 was busy.

=> ↺ Bob Iger Returning as Disney CEO, Bob Chapek Fired by Board – The Hollywood Reporter

• Of course, as Arnold noted in her statement, the novel coronavirus pandemic took its toll on the company, shutting its theme parks and cruise ships, and stopping almost all film and TV productions.

=> ↺ Bullshit Software Projects – Earthly Blog

• Tim Horton’s is a donut and coffee place, and I worked there as a baker assistant around 2002, when I was in university.

• Most donuts fry for 30 seconds per side, then you flip them and do the other side. It’s hot work, spending a shift working over a deep fryer, but frying walnut crunch (since discontinued ) was my favorite part because they took 3 minutes per side, which gave me time to grab an empty cooking oil pail and sit and rest my legs while they cooked.

• [...]

• This was my introduction to busy work: work to be done for no other reason than to keep yourself looking busy. It fits into a larger category of bullshit work: work that the worker must do despite having no purpose.

• [...]

• Bullshit Jobs: A Theory is a 2018 book by David Graeber investigating the strange phenomenon of pointless jobs. Graeber’s book even features interviews with some software developers. Once I started reading it, I felt compelled to test out his theory of BS jobs by asking around1: Did any software developers I knew, or on Lobsters, or Hacker News, have bullshit jobs?

• And sure enough, it didn’t take me long to hear from people who found their jobs to be pointless, and for the majority of them, it wasn’t a specific task, like mopping an already mopped floor, that was useless but an entire software development project. The world is apparently rife with pointless programming projects.

=> ↺ Electoral Bonds: Amid Concerns on Opacity, Donations Cross Rs 10,000-Crore Mark

• Several transparency activists, organisations and political parties have over the years expressed concern about the lack of transperancy around these bonds, as the identity of donors purchasing them remains a secret.

=> ↺ Faced With ‘Baseless Political Lawsuits,’ Biden Extends Student Loan Payment Freeze

• “This pause extension is necessary, but also the bare minimum,” said one activist. “What 45 million borrowers truly need is a Biden administration that won’t allow fringe lawsuits and right-wing courts to undermine economic relief that’s already been approved.”

=> ↺ Scholars, Attorneys, and Advocates to Supreme Court: Don’t Let GOP Tank Student Debt Relief

• A broad coalition of legal scholars, attorneys, labor unions, and advocates filed amicus briefs this week imploring the U.S. Supreme Court to reinstate the Biden administration’s student debt cancellation program, which lower courts have put on hold as Republican officials and right-wing groups attempt to block relief for tens of millions of borrowers.

• The series of filings includes a 32-page brief led by the founders of the Student Loan Law Initiative, a project of the University of California, Irvine School of Law and the Student Borrower Protection Center. The law scholars argue that the Biden administration is perfectly within its right to forgive student loan debt “because Congress, through the plain language of the relevant statute, delegated precisely the authority exercised here.”

=> ↺ All Eyes on Delaware—and a Promising Challenge to the World’s Richest Man

• So Elon Musk may not be all that fabulously ‘brilliant’ after all.

=> ↺ Biden Extends Student Loan Payment Freeze Amid Republican Lawsuits

=> ↺ ‘Greedy Behavior’ of Profit-Hungry Rail Industry Blamed for Looming Strike

• A new analysis shines fresh light on U.S. railroad giants’ “greedy behavior”—from gorging on their own stock to ramping up fees to pad their bottom lines—as workers struggle for basic rights and benefits in ongoing contract negotiations that could result in the first national rail strike in decades.

• Updated figures compiled by the watchdog group Accountable.US and released Tuesday show that BNSF, a subsidiary of billionaire Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway that operates one of North America’s largest railroad networks, saw its net income rise 4% to $4.4 billion during the first three quarters of 2022. Union Pacific, meanwhile, saw its profits jump 11% to $5.36 billion during that period.

AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

=> ↺ Opinion | Warnock’s Campaign Is Tired. He Needs a Revamped Working-Class Message to Defeat Walker

• The Warnock/Walker Senatorial run-off election on December 6th seems to be “more of the same” campaigning and fundraising as occurred during the general election. “More of the same” with tens of millions of dollars spent on unimaginative TV ads is not smart if Warnock wants to win without a disputed razor-thin margin.

=> ↺ Digital Astroturfing as Corporate Propaganda

• We might understand Astroturfing as a right-wing propaganda or a corporate public relation (PR) activity masking the true backers behind a seemingly innocent looking online message or organisation, pretending to be ordinary people engaged in a social activity or protest.

• The hidden organization of Digital Astroturfing can be either political (the Republican party, Tea Party, MAGA, etc.); it can be corporate advertising (a corporation); it can be religious (pretending to support a ban on abortion, for example), or it can even be straight forward corporate public relations. The raison d’être of Astroturfing is to make such engagement, protest, and support appear as if it originates from grassroots participants.

=> ↺ Elon Admits His Content Moderation Council Was Always A Sham To Keep Advertisers On The Site

• Soon after Musk took over Twitter, he announced that no big content moderation changes would occur until after he had convened a “content moderation council” made up of “diverse” perspectives.

=> ↺ Tons Of Big Advertisers Are Bailing On Twitter As Hate Runs Rampant

• A new report claims that more than a third of Twitter’s biggest advertisers have now pulled their ads from the platform, as the unstable and unpredictable nature of the new owner, combined with his implicit encouragement for hate, has made the site less and less welcoming to the brands with money to spend.

=> ↺ White House expected to issue executive order reining in spyware

• The letter does not define what would amount to improper use or what these security risks entail — potentially leaving opportunities for the U.S. government to still deploy spyware. Nonetheless, the measure would entail the latest effort by the Biden administration to address the privacy risks posed by highly intrusive software used by law enforcement and intelligence agencies around the world.

• The prospect of an executive order limiting the use of spyware would likely set up an intense debate among law enforcement and intelligence agencies interested in the technology and surveillance watchdogs in Congress.

=> ↺ Twitter faces serious legal threat from ex-employees, experts say

• Twitter plans to keep many, but not all, of the laid-off workers on the payroll for two months as a means of complying with the law, Liss-Riordan said. However, the company does not intend to pay full severance beyond those months as previously promised, she added.

=> ↺ Adult Performers, Trump Supporters and Parodies: Who Is Paying for Twitter?

• The plan had attracted about 140,000 users as of Nov. 15, according to data from Travis Brown, a software developer in Berlin who has studied extremism on Twitter. But it also spurred spoof accounts, rattled advertisers and emboldened far-right influencers. Twitter has halted the program over issues with impersonation.

• Here is who is paying for Twitter.

=> ↺ Twitter boss Elon Musk keeps conspiracy theorist Alex Jones off platform

• Those asking for his return included the controversial [Internet] tycoon Kim Dotcom.

=> ↺ Actually, Democrats Didn’t “Win” the Midterms

=> ↺ Can Raphael Warnock Win an Even Tougher Runoff Election?

• The 2022 midterms are over, and Democrats did better than they had a right to expect. The president’s party almost always loses Congress two years into his first term; this time, it held the Senate and lost the House by, at press time, only six seats (with five races still to be called). Democrats won thrilling victories from Pennsylvania to Michigan to Arizona. Politically, though, they couldn’t defy their own mistakes. In New York, establishment political malpractice led to the loss of four House seats. And Georgia, the star of the 2020 cycle, came up short of the promise we saw back then. The Peach State won the White House for Joe Biden, and in 2021 it elected two Democratic senators, giving the party its crucial majority (with the vote of Vice President Kamala Harris). This time, Stacey Abrams, one of the architects of Georgia’s Democratic successes in the last cycle, lost her second race against Governor Brian Kemp, by almost 250,000 more votes than she did in 2018. And while Senator Raphael Warnock beat the former football star Herschel Walker, he fell a half-point short of the 50 percent he needed to win outright and was forced into a December runoff.

=> ↺ ‘Unconscionable’: Georgia Supreme Court Revives 6-Week Abortion Ban

• Reproductive rights advocates responded with outrage Wednesday after the Georgia Supreme Court reinstated the state’s draconian law prohibiting abortions after six weeks of pregnancy.

• “This ban has wreaked havoc on Georgians’ lives, and our patients deserve better.”

=> ↺ Georgia Supreme Court Rejects GOP Effort to Prevent Saturday Voting in Senate Runoff

• Update:

• The Georgia Supreme Court on Wednesday unanimously rejected the Republican Party’s attempt to block early voting this Saturday in the U.S. Senate runoff election between Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock and GOP candidate Herschel Walker.

=> ↺ Dear Liberals: Stop Your Smug Celebration of the Midterms

• How grotesque.

• Yes, there was no red wave. The at least non-fascist major capitalist party, the Democrats, will keep the US Senate for two more years. MAGA candidates backed by the malignant narcissi-fascist Donald Trump did badly, something that is helping cost him support from leading Republican politicos and billionaire donors and raising questions about his viability as a 2024 presidential candidate. A bunch of ghastly election-denier/-stealer MAGA candidates vying for offices in charge of electoral processes and machinery (secretary of state, attorney general, and governor) lost in key contested states where they would have been able to monkey with the next presidential election.

=> ↺ Techdirt Podcast Episode 337: Will Elon Kill Twitter?

• This week, we have a special joint episode with The Neoliberal Podcast, discussing the question on a lot of minds: just what the hell is going on at Twitter now that Elon Musk is in charge? He’s owned the company for less than a month, and it’s already in chaos. Mike sits down with Neoliberal Podcast host Jeremiah Johnson to discuss why content moderation is so difficult at scale, whether Mastodon can be a real Twitter replacement, Elon’s erratic and dumb moves, and the big question: whether or not Twitter might die.

=> ↺ Opinion | I Don’t Mourn the Queen – POLITICO

• The only real difference between Black Brits and Black Americans is that Britain offshored its racist violence to the colonies.

=> ↺ Decolonize!

=> ↺ Scotland in Chains

• I live in the capital of my country. I had to travel hundreds of miles to the capital of a foreign country to hear a bunch of unionist judges, the majority from a foreign country, declare that my country has no right to existence, indeed my country only exists at all in so far as it was incorporated by a foreign parliament in the Scotland Act of 1998.

=> ↺ Slovakia and Austria react to Orbán’s scarf with map of Greater Hungary

=> ↺ Russia’s retaliation, bicycle propaganda in the EU – Arte’s Europe Weekly. From now on, in cooperation with Telex

=> ↺ Lula’s Victory in Brazil and the Second Pink Wave

• Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s victory over Jair Bolsonaro in the Brazilian presidential election is the latest evidence of the resurgence of the Latin American left. This is a one of the most hopeful stories in the world, since the left and center-left parties that now govern most of Latin America have the potential to seriously address issues like climate change and inequality. But it’s a complex story too, since the populist right is also gaining force. Bolsonaro’s supporters did well in elections below the presidential level. The right is also organizing effective opposition in many other countries in the region, forcing the left to govern in coalitions with centrists.

=> ↺ Judge Cannon’s Pro-Trump Special Master Review Order Could Be Shut Down

=> ↺ ‘Carpetbagger’ Charges Fly as Georgia GOP Senate Candidate Walker’s Texas Tax Break Exposed

• Republican U.S. Senate hopeful Herschel Walker is the beneficiary of a tax break meant for permanent Texas residents—a possible violation of both Texas law and residency rules for voting and political candidacy in Georgia, CNN reported Wednesday.

• Records reviewed by the network show Walker benefited from Texas’ homestead tax exemption, shaving approximately $1,200 off his 2021 tax bill on his $3 million home in the Dallas-Ft. Worth suburb of Westlake. The Texas Tribune reports the former NFL star is expected to apply for the discount again this year, and would likely save about $1,500.

Misinformation/Disinformation/Propaganda

=> ↺ Media Misled on Issues Important to Midterm Voters

• “The political press blew it.” So wrote Dana Milbank of the Washington Post (11/9/22), calling the fourth estate the “biggest loser of the midterm elections.” As he points out, most of the headlines leading into Election Day forecast a “Democratic wipeout.” And, it hardly bears mentioning, such a Democratic rout didn’t occur.

Censorship/Free Speech

=> ↺ Inmates Who Killed a Writer and a Publisher Escape in Bangladesh

• The prisoners were among those convicted in the murders of the Bangladeshi-American writer, Avijit Roy, in 2015 and of his publisher, Faisal Arefin Dipan, later that year. The killings represented an unsettling rise in extremist violence in Bangladesh. Another of Mr. Roy’s publishers and several intellectuals and bloggers critical of fundamentalist Islam were also killed that year.

=> ↺ Turkey summons Swedish ambassador over ‘insulting’ images of Erdogan Access to the comments

• Turkey has summoned Sweden’s ambassador to Ankara to protest against “insulting” images of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

=> ↺ This Holiday Season, You Can Find Ways to Talk to Your Family About the Climate Crisis

• When the winter holidays start, many of us find ourselves in a season of uncomfortable conversations. It’s a time of living-room and dinner-table moments catching up with relatives and friends—all of whom may have mildly or radically different political leanings, generational perspectives, religious views, and other ways of dealing with the world than we do.

=> ↺ Two Bangladeshi militants on death row for killing US blogger escape from court

• Two Islamist militants sentenced to death for killing a Bangladeshi-American blogger and his publisher, escaped from the premises of a crowded court in Bangladesh’s capital Dhaka on Sunday.

=> ↺ India: Hindu Students Under Attack

• India Today’s Muslim journalist Abdul Basheer reported on this incident with the headline, “Hyderabad Student beaten by Hostel mates for insulting Prophet Muhammad.” He masterfully concealed the fact that a lone Hindu boy was terrorized by a gang of Muslims, and tried to give the incident a fake narrative that encouraged the Muslim agenda. With this reporting style, the “journalist” further reinforced the proposition that a Muslim will be a Muslim first and a doctor, lawyer, actor, or as in this case, a journalist only secondarily. The Hyderabad incident and its media treatment again prove that no amount of education can free some Muslims from their will to wage jihad.

=> ↺ Brazilian journalist’s phone seized by police after confusion over flag at FIFA

• “Then an officer arrived and tried to intervene. He grabbed the phone from the other guy and ordered me to delete the video,” he added.

• Pernambuco’s governor Paulo Camara said, “Our solidarity with the Pernambuco journalist Victor Pereira. Victor is covering the Qatar Cup and had the flag of Pernambuco that he carried seized by the authorities of that country.”

=> ↺ Strict media laws, no public data, sources at risk: what it’s like to be a journalist in Qatar

• Chief among the human rights concerns cited by those who criticise Qatar is the condition of the migrant workers who built the stadiums, and on whom the country relies in other industries as well. The impact on Qatari women of the male guardianship law and the treatment of LGBTQ+ people are also discussed. Something mentioned less often is press freedom. In the 2022 World Press Freedom Index, Qatar ranks at 119 out of 180 countries, down from its high of 74 in 2008.

• In a country where no journalists have died this year and none are currently in prison but where media laws are strict and self-censorship is rampant, what is it like to be a journalist? And what should international reporters be aware of as they land in Qatar to cover the World Cup?

=> ↺ Ginger Sufferings: Gianni Infantino’s Sportswashing Performance

• What followed was almost gruesome in its hilarity and could be summed up with the old biblical injunction against casting the first stone. Perhaps there was something of US President Woodrow Wilson about it, who claimed in 1915 that no one nation could judge another. (Fabulous as this was, the president proceeded to judge Imperial Germany and Kaiserism, committing the United States to World War I.)

• FIFA has always been of that restricted view of judgment, for good reason. It hardly counts as a sporting organisation and should be likened to a mafia-styled corporation. For its officials, corruption has been naturalised to the point of habit, and anyone willing to cast stones at it would need a quarry.

=> ↺ Qatar wants to silence journalists during the World Cup

• According to RSF, the host country has Qatar slipped rules and conditions into the accreditation application to discourage the journalists from reporting on, for example, the working conditions of the migrant workers in the country.

Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press

=> ↺ State Duma asks Prosecutor General’s Office to declare student publication Doxa ‘extremist organization’ — Meduza

• The State Duma Commission for Investigating Foreign Interference in Russia’s Internal Affairs asked the Prosecutor General’s Office to declare the student publication Doxa an “extremist organization.”

Civil Rights/Policing

=> ↺ England, Other Teams Drop Plans to Wear Antidiscrimination Armbands at Qatar World Cup

• Hours before their opening games of the 2022 World Cup, England and Wales abandoned plans to wear rainbow armbands after FIFA threatened to sanction players for breaking tournament rules.

• In one of the early flashpoints of the tournament, FIFA on Sunday notified seven European teams that players would be subject to sporting sanctions, including automatic yellow cards, for wearing the “One Love” armbands, which were designed to send a message against discrimination. The target was widely understood to be anti-homosexuality laws in Qatar.

=> ↺ Afghanistan: Taliban publicly flogs boy, girl for having pre-marital affair

• Taliban Supremo Mullah Hibatullah Akhundzada previously in a meeting with court judges said that they must not hesitate in giving Hadd and Qisas punishments as per Islamic law, according to Khaama Press.

• Hadd crimes are punishable by death or amputation of limbs and other harsh punishments and Qisas are ruled as per the eye for an eye law of retributive justice.

• Since the Taliban’s hostile takeover of Afghanistan, similar incidents have been happening frequently.

=> ↺ HUD Displaces More Residents From Cairo, Ill.

• It was the last Friday in October, and barges filled with mounds of glistening coal sat parked in the Ohio River below Lee Esther Logan’s high-rise public housing apartment complex in Cairo, Illinois. Wispy white clouds streaked a baby blue sky. The panoramic waterfront view is one that normally gives Logan peace as she takes it in from the brown recliner on her balcony.

• But on the day I visited her, Logan wasn’t at peace. She was anxious.

=> ↺ Steven Donziger & Lee Camp: Big Oil Owns the US Justice System

=> ↺ Unemployed

=> ↺ Stop and Smell the Apocalypse

=> ↺ Defiance in Iran: Despite Crackdown, Anti-Government Protests May Grow into “Nationwide Revolution”

• The situation in Iran is “critical” as authorities tighten their crackdown on the continuing anti-government protests after the September death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in the custody of the so-called morality police. United Nations human rights officials report Iranian security forces in Kurdish cities killed dozens of protesters this week alone, with each funeral turning into a mass rally against the central government. “The defiance has been astounding,” says Middle East studies professor Nahid Siamdoust, who reported for years from Iran, including during the 2009 Green Movement, and calls the protests a “nationwide revolution.”

=> ↺ Will Iranian Protests Grow Into a “Nationwide Revolution” Despite Crackdown?

=> ↺ The airport of the future is the airport of today — and that’s not good.

• [Facial recognition at each step in airline passenger processing. Slide from presentation by Heathrow Airport Holdings Ltd. to the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) Traveler Identitification Program symposium, October 2018]Today, the day before Thanksgiving, will probably be the busiest day for air travel in the USA since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020.

• If you are flying this week for the first time in three years, what will you see that has changed?

• Unfortunately, many of the most significant changes made during the pandemic are deliberately invisible — which is part of what makes them so evil.

=> ↺ Alabama Pauses Executions After Numerous Prisoners Survive Attempts to Kill Them

=> ↺ Chomsky: US Sanctions on Iran Don’t Support the Protests, They Deepen Suffering

=> ↺ Immigrants Can Work Jobs at the University of California, and Latinos Are Fighting Toxic Pollution

• Hundreds of thousands of young immigrants brought here by their undocumented parents since 2007 are not eligible for DACA. But now they may be eligible for jobs—at the University of California. UCLA law professor Ahilan Arulanantham explains. Powered by RedCircle

=> ↺ DOJ Follows Up Springfield (MA) PD Consent Decree With An Investigation Of The Worcester PD

• Two years ago, the DOJ opened up an investigation into the Springfield, Massachusetts police department, targeting its troubled Narcotics Unit. Like far too many other drug-focused units, the Springfield Narcotics Unit was filled with officers who routinely engaged rights violations.

=> ↺ Over 400 Groups Urge Biden to Strengthen Protections for Haitian Migrants

• As Haitians reel from more than a year of civil and political unrest, 422 advocacy groups on Tuesday asked the Biden administration to redesignate Haiti for Temporary Protected Status, under which people who are unable to safely return to their homeland can remain in the United States.

• “We have stood as frontline workers knowing that there was a possibility of death. Despite this, I live in constant fear of deportation.”

=> ↺ Thankful for Montana’s Constitution

• When you think about the condition of most of the United States, it’s obvious why we’re now experiencing such a surge of in-migrants. Montanans have a long history of being considered kind and generous people and the so-called “rat race” hasn’t yet come to define our lives here. We are not stuck on 8-lane freeways crawling along in stop and go traffic while road rage and frustration boils. Nope, in a very short time you’re in and out of any town — and when you’re out, the real and unique “wealth” of Montana comes shining through.

• Consider, for instance, the stunning fact that virtually all of the native species that existed when Lewis and Clark’s expedition went through the state over 200 years ago — and that’s anything but a fluke. In fact, Montana’s long-standing dedication to conservation of public lands and waters is guaranteed by our Constitution, which has been internationally lauded for exactly that reason.

=> ↺ Attack of the Killer Robots

• One chilly morning, you’re awakened by a faint buzzing noise, like the sound of swarming wasps. It gets louder and louder—until suddenly, intense flashes light up the windows of your apartment.

• You peek outside, just in time to see part of a residential building—your neighbors’ homes—collapse in flames. Acrid clouds of smoke billow from a hole in the side. Down below, you see the wreckage of several small delta-winged drones.

Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

=> ↺ The Law Bytes Podcast, Episode 147: Canada’s Battle over Internet Streamers – A Cancon Story of Freedom of Expression, Algorithms and Cultural Policy – Michael Geist

• The end for Bill C-11 at the Senate is drawing near as this week, Canadian Heritage Minister Pablo Rodriguez is scheduled to make a long awaited appearance followed by clause-by-clause review of the bill. The Senate hearings have been a model for legislative review. They have heard from a myriad of witness, read countless briefs, and immersed themselves in a hard piece of legislation. Regardless of their views, they know the issues around content regulation in the bill are real. The big remaining questions are whether those hearings result in legislative amendments and, if they do, whether the government will accept them.

=> ↺ No Billion Dollar Bonus: Officials Admit Most Bill C-11 Funding Isn’t New and Will Still Be Controlled by Foreign Streamers – Michael Geist

• Canadian Heritage Minister Pablo Rodriguez and department officials appeared before the Senate Committee on Transport and Communications yesterday on Bill C-11. I posted a Substack of my live tweeting of the Minister’s appearance, which included continued gaslighting on the applicability of the bill to user content and an acknowledgement that it could lead to algorithmic manipulation. After Rodriguez departed, officials took questions for another hour. One of the most notable exchanges involved the express admission that the much-touted estimate that the bill would generate a billion dollars is massively overstated. In fact, department officials now admit that most of that money isn’t new at all. Rather (much as I’ve argued), it is simply a re-allocation of existing expenditures in Canada that is unlikely to result in significant increased economic activity or new jobs.

• When Rodriguez appeared before the House committee in June, he was quick to tout claims that “we estimate that this legislation will generate close to $1 billion a year.” It turns out that was misinformation as we now know that the funds are simply shuffling around existing spending, not generating hundreds of millions of new money.

Monopolies

Copyrights

=> ↺ As Largest Archive Of K-Pop Live Streams Goes Offline, What Happens To All That Culture?

• When people speak of culture, and preserving it, they usually mean the works of recognized artistic giants like Shakespeare, Leonardo Da Vinci, Charlie Chaplin, and Miles Davis. They rarely mean things like live streams of Korean pop music, generally known as K-pop. And yet K-pop is undoubtedly an expression – some would say a particularly vibrant expression – of a characteristic modern culture. It is also subject to copyright, which brings with it problems, as this story on Mashable reveals:

=> ↺ Z-Library’s Tor Network Site Has Also Gone Offline (Update)

• The troubles for Z-Library continue. The popular shadow library lost access to hundreds of domains after two alleged operators were arrested as part of a criminal investigation. The site remained accessible through the Tor network but today that’s no longer the case.

=> ↺ Google Ordered to Remove Pirate Site Domains From U.S. Search Results

• A copyright lawsuit filed last week targeting DaftSex.com and PornWild.com is progressing at a surprising pace. With Google, Cloudflare, Namecheap, and EasyDNS named as defendants, the court has already ordered the suspension of several domains and their removal from Google’s search results. Interestingly, DaftSex.com was recently seized by MindGeek so is not a pirate site.

Gemini* and Gopher

Personal

=> ↺ Update for Thanksgiving week 2022

Technical

Internet/Gemini

=> ↺ A rabbit hole of webmentions

• How hard could it be?

• It’s relatively straightforward, or so I thought until I started going down this particular rabbit hole yesterday [2]. The first stumbling block is sendind a webmention. The protocol itself isn’t that tough—just send a POST to an endpoint with the URL (Uniform Resource Locator) of my post, and the URL of the post I mentioned and that’s pretty much it. But the issue I have is that I tend to link freely. This one paragraph post [3] has six links in it! When I exclude links back to my own blog, there are still three external links. Do I check each one? There are plenty of posts (like this one [4]) where sending a webmention isn’t something I want to do. So I’m having a bit of analysis paralysis [5] on how exactly I want to handle this. For now, it’s a manual process.

• Gemini (Primer) links can be opened using Gemini software. It’s like the World Wide Web but a lot lighter. Share in other sites/networks: These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages. Permalink  Send this to a friend

=> Techrights

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